Life, Family, Yoga, Stuff

Tag Archives: thai

This is the time of year that my husband has to work a lot of hours. I don’t mind so much because I totally guard my time alone. Always have. I’ve heard people say that’s unhealthy, but I beg to differ. I think it depends on the individual. And for me? I think it’s totally healthy. If I don’t have that space I get really pissy.

My daughter has a great friend who lives at our place on the weekends. Sometimes she lives with us during the week as well. I don’t mind. I only have one daughter and my son is in college so he’s not around anymore. When the girls are together I really don’t know that they’re here. They hang out and play the PS3, they watch Netflix and geek on Facebook. It’s all good.

Last night it was just us 3 chicks for quite awhile so I rummaged the cabinets to see what I could fix. The rain has been totally insane for the last 24 hours or so and to top that off, it feels like freaking winter out. Ridiculous! In other words I did not want to go out. Luckily we had most everything we needed to whip up a decent Thai spread. Rice noodles, chicken, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, peanut and teriyaki sauce and red wine for me. We jammed out to some Traffic, the Kinks and Van Morrison. What a fun night!

The party was in celebration of my FIRST FREE weekend after I quit cleaning. I have had places to be, things to do or been sick since I quit! And what am I doing on my free weekend? Besides eating Thai food and drinking wine, I’m prepping the bathroom for a paint revamp. Yep. We are leaving the freshwather fish border and mossy green paint behind. Going soft, pale blue with black accents. Lauren will have a new background for all of her Facebook shots that she takes in there since the light is great.

After our visit to the salt pool, we came back to the house and planned our dinner. We had to have a laugh about how she used to make almost $72 an hour and now she makes like $10.50. We also joked about how much I used to make when I had the video store. We have less disposable income but we still enjoy the finer things and eachother and that’s all that matters. We have a place to live and we’re not starving to death.

Instead of crying about how much cash we used to rake in, we decided to laugh and have a few (or more) alcoholic beverages. She quickly whipped up some great pina coladas. They were awesome, whipped cream and all. I’m not really into rum, but I downed three to be exact. We also made Thai food. I washed the dishes last night and accidentally submerged the Nespresso Aeroccino. Big mistake. I had no clue as I have the poor mans manual pump frother at my house. After a short flip out I dried it out with a hair dryer and all is good. We had froth the electric way, enough said.

That’s Jeanine and I on the left. Ava took this photos, she’s 5, and she’s a little short so I think we look a tad bit squatty. We’re drinking our pina coladas in a fancy, retro, thrift store glass. We are three years apart (I’m older) and we weren’t always as good of friends as we are now. But I can’t imagine life without her. She’s funny, she’s smart and she’s totally sarcastic. She’s also great with fashion (I totally suck at that) and she can shop like a mad woman.

Today we ventured into Ft. Myers for shopping. When we passed through Cape Coral, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Lots of homes were overgrown and empty. She pretty much said that’s how it’s been. Several shopping centers are vacant as well. This area has been hit super hard with the downfall in the economy. Pretty much because the bulk of the jobs were in real estate and construction. Sad it was to see the ghost town areas and places that we used to go offering such deep discounts.

We took the kids store called the Cheshire Cat and of course the Ulta store. After that we had a little snack for lunch. On the way home we stopped at Family Thrift where we dropped $93 between the two of us. We totally scored. I got five pairs of pants and only three fit, but that’s ok. She got a brand new pair of Keen canvas shoes for $30. I also scored three brand name tops and Ava picked up a gigantic stack of awesome books and some clothes of course.

We stopped at Old Time Pottery on the way back to the island but frankly, I was too dead to look around. That place is ginormous but awesome. Definitely a place to spend a couple of hours in for sure. Tomorrow I will babysit Ava here on the island while Jeanine works. We will meet my folks at a halfway point tomorrow evening so I can head back to Englewood. They had a great time with Lauren and Mady today at the beach for starters. Then they made soap and then they made bon-bons. I can’t wait to see all of their creations that’s for sure.

Tonight we’ll finish off the Thai food and the pina coladas. Then I’m going to make a creme brule. We’ve listened to James Taylor, Allison Krause, The Killers and Bob Marley. Life just doesn’t get much better than this. Did I mention that I bought a one way ticket? Mabye I’ll just stay.

This weekend was my long overdue getaway for yoga with a friend. So on Saturday, we headed to St. Louis and stayed on the Hill. As soon as we arrived, I grabbed my shopping list and we headed for J. Viviano & Son’sItalian grocer to pick up some good stuff for us and for others. We stocked up on this great garlic pepper, mozarella cheese and bread. I also purchased the most beautiful bottle of wine for a good friend. She collects blue bottles, and this one was shaped like a fish. I can’t wait to give it to her as a token for the wonderful artwork that she’s done for me.

After a bit of resting, we headed back to that same area where the grocer was located (less than five minutes from our hotel) to have dinner at Lorenzo’s Trattoria. We had made reservations and were sad to find we didn’t need them. The place was near dead at 6 p.m. on a Saturday evening. The traffic to St. Louis wasn’t bad either, and our hotel was fairly quiet. Economy? I think so. My friend had appetizers of calamari and goat cheese ravioli. I ordered penne pasta with eggplant, capers and kalamata olives with fresh mozarella cheese in tomato sauce. It was awesome. I liked the way they decorated each table with a clear glass full of these super long, skinny bread sticks. Simple but elegant. We had great coffee for dessert and then I ordered a tiramisu to go for later. Mistake. We were almost too full to enjoy it!

Sunday was breakfast at the hotel restaurant. We made healthy choices as we were headed for a full day of yoga with Saul David Raye. And what a day it was! (I borrowed this photo from someone’s Flickr site.) We arrived early at Webster University as we usually do to find a comfortable spot. The room has high, vaulted ceilings, nice windows and decent acoustics. We started our practice with meditation, in several different but enjoyable forms; everything from white noise, chanting, dancing and turning inward. Our practice was really good as it always is! It’s a feel good type of yoga that’s accessible to every body. He’s a very peaceful soul and guides us a lot of the time with his eyes closed. Maybe he’s channeling I don’t know. But it’s great. He usually travels with musicians and this time he was with Tony Kahlife. We enjoyed a little live music during the Sunday morning practice and were disappointed that we could not stay for the concert that evening. Yoga teaching duty called both of us to be home on Monday morning!

We also had a wonderful Indian and Thai combo lunch catered by the folks that hosted the workshop. It was a beautiful day to be outside, so that’s where the lunch was held. They served us fresh greens from their garden, rice, Palak Paneer, Tandoori Naans, and Thai noodles with an array of spices or crushed peanuts all washed down with hot tea. Wow. Best lunch I’ve had a in a long time, thanks guys!

After lunch, Thai Yoga was scheduled for the afternoon. This is always a great experience and though I’d taken this class once before, it was so wonderful to get a refresher. I would love to participate in this entire training, but there’s that cash flow factor and a two week trip to California involved. Perhaps someday. I don’t really want to be a massage therapist, I just like to share it in my yoga classes and relieve my family of stress. My son really loves this and I’m taking him with me to a class I’m taking this evening. My travel partner will be teaching and together, we will share some of what we learned with our group.

Right now, I feel very grounded, peaceful and happy. The rest of my day involves grocery shopping, kids, laundry and dinner. I will try to remain totally present in whatever I’m doing at the moment and keep the multi-tasking at a minimum. Wish me luck.